


Give Sorrow Words

by Jade_Waters



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Time, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-29
Updated: 2014-03-29
Packaged: 2018-01-17 11:35:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1386175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Waters/pseuds/Jade_Waters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following the events of 3x20/21 "Improbable Cause" & "The Die Is Cast," Garak believes Enabran Tain is dead.  Dr. Bashir helps him through his grief.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Give Sorrow Words

**Author's Note:**

> That look on Garak's face at the end of "The Die Is Cast" - he is so not alright.

It’s been three days since he and Odo returned to DS9, following their little misadventure in the Gamma quadrant. Garak hasn’t slept at all. Instead he paces around the habitat ring late at night, unable and unwilling to be still, lest his memories catch up with him. In the day it’s alright — he has his work, random customers, interruptions to occupy his mind. Now he has nothing to do but wear holes in Federation carpet.  
  
He stops without consciously realizing where he is. Ah, he has brought himself to Dr. Bashir’s quarters. This seems both clever and stupid at the same time, but he rings the door chime anyway, and waits.  
  
*  
  
Julian is very pleasantly asleep when his door chimes, so he’s more than a little grumpy when he asks, “Who is it?”  
  
“It’s Garak,” comes an unusually succinct reply.  
  
“Couldn’t you wait til morning?” Bashir asks, still annoyed at being woken. When no answer comes, however, he’s suddenly very awake and very concerned. A Garak who is well would never leave him be just because he was rude. On the contrary.  
  
In a flash, Julian’s at his door, glad he slept fully clothed and doesn’t have any guests over for the evening. What he sees when he opens the door does not reassure him. Garak is fidgeting, tense, quiet. Exhausted. “Oh,” Julian says, and then he’s pulling the Cardassian inside, ushering him to his breakfast table. “Sit,” he commands, and then he’s replicating rokassa juice and not commenting on the smell as he sets it on the table, only saying, “Drink,” as he goes to fetch his tricorder.   
  
*  
  
Dr. Bashir considers himself a scientist first and foremost. But Garak knows better: above all else, the good doctor is a caregiver. It is evident in the way he takes one look at Garak and bursts into action, takes control, forgets about everything else, including his own wellbeing. As he sits at the table sipping the juice, Garak thinks that’s why his subconscious mind brought him here. Everything inside himself feels tight, so tight it’s going to snap and he doesn’t know what to do, how to stop it. Maybe Julian can fix it.  
  
The doctor returns, scans him quickly. Before Garak can protest, he takes his hand and begins to regenerate the skin on his knuckles. “Really, Doctor, it’s just a scratch, there’s no need -”   
  
Julian gives him a look that clearly says, _“Let me do my job,”_ so Garak stops, lets the skin knit back together. When he’s done and he’s closed the tricorder, he asks, “What’d you do to your hand?”  
  
“Scraped it while dragging debris out of my shop,” Garak answers. It’s true enough — no need to add that he was perhaps overenthusiastic in the dismantling of some scrap metal.  
  
For once no question comes about the veracity of his statement. Julian just asks another question, “When was the last time you slept, Garak?” His voice is so gentle, no accusation or judgement underneath, only the soft suggestion that the doctor already knows the answer.  
  
Garak looks at his hand around the glass of rokassa. He thinks back, gets dragged into the undercurrent of his memories. Julian’s hand on his shoulder hauls him up to the surface again and he looks up into his friend’s eyes. He knows his face is wide open, haunted; he watches Julian’s eyes go soft and warm. Garak watches sympathetic pain flicker across Julian’s face and he doesn’t understand how the doctor can be so kind, always so empathetic, but he is. He is.   
  
*  
  
Julian knows about what happened in the Gamma quadrant, more or less. He read the reports. He knows Garak rejoined Enabran Tain, and Odo was kept against his will, and that Tain did not come back with them. He doesn’t know what all this means to his friend, however, nor what might have been left out of the reports.  
  
The look Garak gives him is broken, though. So unexpectedly honest it bowls Julian right over. He knows in that moment there are very few things he could deny this man. All Garak has to do is ask, and he’ll be there. They stare at each other for a long moment before he shakes himself out of it, moves his hand from Garak’s shoulder to his hand, tugs him up, “Come on,” he says.  
  
“Where?” Garak asks even as he follows.   
  
It worries Julian that Garak is so acquiescent. Not even a passing argument so far. “You need to sleep,” he says. He pulls Garak into his bedroom.  
  
There Garak finally stalls, coming to a full stop at the threshold. The look he gives Julian is filled with questions. “What about you?” he asks out loud.   
  
The doctor’s not sure what answer Garak actually wants to hear. He’d thought to simply sleep on his couch, but something about the Cardassian’s tone, his open vulnerability, makes him wonder if he’s afraid to be left alone. If being alone has been part of the problem. That would not be an unusual response to grief, after all. “Don’t worry about me,” he finally answers. He guides Garak to the bed, sits him down again. “Do you want me to give you anything to sleep?”  
  
“No!” Garak starts, “Thank you, Doctor, but no.”   
  
*  
  
Julian accepts his quick rejection of a sleep aid. He just nods, “Ok. That’s fine.” Garak feels like he’s swimming in a tar pit: his mind is so slow, fogged, nothing makes sense. Then the doctor is kneeling in front of him and he doesn’t understand. Julian tugs off one shoe, and then the other, looks back up at him. “Alright?” he asks. Garak feels himself nod. He’s never been so tongue-tied. Breathing feels like his lungs are full of broken glass. His heart’s squeezed so tight he wonders if it’s stopped.   
  
The doctor stands. He comes closer, between Garak’s knees so he can push the jacket off his shoulders. The human is warm, so close to him. He smells of soap and sleep. If before the water dragged him down, now he feels it overflow, coming like a flood, a wave roaring. Julian picks up the jacket to put it away somewhere, but Garak grabs his waist before he can leave. He pulls him until his knees hit the bed, presses his head into Julian’s chest and tries to breathe.  
  
Julian startles at first, but soon his hands settle, like little birds fluttering, one on his shoulder, the other on his head. “Garak,” he whispers. The spy’s trembling all over, shaking. The hand on his head pets his hair, gently, smoothly, down his neck. He doesn’t say it’s alright or that things will be ok. Those fine, strong human fingers thread through his hair, press against his skull, the muscles in his neck, again, warmth seeping into him, again, and that wave comes crashing down. Garak chokes, squeezes his eyes shut against Julian’s shirt, draws a ragged breath, feels the involuntary stutter in his diaphragm. He feels like a child but Julian only whispers, “Let it go,” and keeps petting his hair.  
  
*  
  
Bashir holds still, lets Garak keep him where he wants. He knows already this is a thing which Garak will not acknowledge after the fact, but maybe what matters is that he’s allowing it to happen at all. The actual crying doesn’t last very long, a few minutes maybe. He hasn’t been this physically close to his friend since the withdrawal from his implant, but that was different. Then, Garak had fought him as he tried to push closer. Now, he clings as if Bashir is some secret key to holding himself together.  
  
As Garak’s breathing evens out a bit, Julian turns his petting into a gentle massage of the back of his neck, pressing lightly into the muscles knotted so tight he’s surprised Garak can see straight. “Breathe, Garak,” he murmurs, “Breathe.” The spy listens, inhales, lets out a shaky sigh.   
  
After another breath or two, Garak pulls back, takes Julian’s hands off him, holds them in his own hands. Julian squeezes his hands, lets go. “Get into bed. I’m going to get some water — I’ll be right back.” Bashir feels the Cardassian’s gaze follow him as he leaves the room. In the main room he puts the rokassa juice back into the replicator. He wonders what happened, exactly, that’s left his friend like this. He can’t imagine what would put Garak — former agent of the Obsidian Order — in such a state. He sighs, doubting he’ll ever get a real answer and looks down at his shirt. There’s wet splotches across the middle — the thought that Garak caused them is so surreal he strips off the shirt and tosses it into a chair, takes the water from the replicator and returns to his room.   
  
Garak has moved to lean against the headboard, legs outstretched, but only shoved the covers down and hasn’t actually gotten into bed. Julian gives him a look but hands over the water. When Garak takes a drink and hands it back, he sets it on the bedside table and then circles around to the other side of the bed. Garak watches him, but doesn’t speak. He’s so quiet, so unlike himself it’s frightening. Julian thinks about asking if Garak wants him to stay, but he concludes that he’ll never get a straight answer, so he doesn’t bother. He slips into his side of the bed, then tugs Garak down and pulls the covers up. “Computer, lights out,” he says, and then gently to Garak, “Go to sleep. I’ll be right here.”  
  
There’s quiet for a while. Bashir’s pretty sure that Garak’s still looking at him, even though his human eyes can’t see. He just lays still, though, willing himself to relax and possibly return to sleep. Then, in the most tentative voice Bashir’s ever heard him use, Garak asks, “Doctor, may I... Touch you? I don’t mean to be so... Invasive. My apologies. It’s only I feel so. Well.”  
  
Julian thinks he might go stammering on, but it isn’t necessary, so he reaches out, finds the Cardassian’s hand. “Yes,” he says, guiding that hand back to himself. _Alone,_ Julian thinks, is the word Garak didn’t say. The Order is all but destroyed. Tain with it. The life Garak knew before is gone. Julian understands loneliness. He has lied and held himself at a distance for half his lifetime in order to hide the fact that he is different. He longs for acceptance, for love despite his flaws. So when Garak pulls him close, wraps his arms around his skinny waist, Julian says again, “Yes.”  
  
*  
  
They kiss in the dark. It’s soft and closed-lipped. Garak did not plan this at all, but suddenly he needs it like he needs air and Julian says yes again and he is so giving, so open — a lifeline for a drowning man. Garak kisses him again, hungry this time.  
  
The warm little human has already done him the favor of removing his shirt, so Garak runs his palms up and down his sides, presses strong fingers into that lithe back. Julian arches into him, as eager in this as he is in all new ventures. Gratitude and deep affection for the doctor blossom in Garak’s chest and he tries to press those feelings into their next kiss. Julian moans, melts against him. His hands find neck ridges and stroke up and down until Garak is nearly purring.   
  
Julian lets Garak just feel. The doctor pulls his heart out into the open — onto his sleeve, as the humans say. For a moment, he is sorry the canvas Julian has given him to paint is his own body: the only pigments he has to work with tonight are grief and pain. He feels suddenly angry at Tain, for existing, for dying, for bringing him to this — it’s so far beyond unfair he can’t bare it. He pushes Julian into the mattress, rolls so he kneels over him, between his legs. He bites and sucks and scratches the body beneath him. Julian accepts the pain, his fingers clenching, twisting in the bedsheets, his breath coming in little puffs and pants as his skin grows hot.  
  
Garak has not had sex of any kind with anyone for years. It has long been a luxury he can’t afford. He thinks for a second that, even with the Order decimated, the price might still be too high, but this doesn’t feel like luxury at all. It hurts. It burns and aches and rips him to pieces inside. He needs this, though. He needs Julian.   
  
As Garak moves down Julian’s body, his anger washes into sorrow. Tain is gone. The man he loved and hated and longed for and feared. Gone. Garak slips the doctor’s pants down, slow, off one foot at a time. His hands are trembling when he puts them back against human skin. He kisses wet and soft along stark hip bones. He is on the knife edge of despair when Julian’s fingers find him, tangle themselves in his hair. He is anchored once again.  
  
*  
  
Julian is surprised when Garak’s mouth slips down over his cock. He’s not sure what he expected at the beginning, but Garak is systematically consuming him, inch by inch. His hips arch up as he groans, his fingers clench too hard in his hair. The Cardassian pins him down and sucks, slow and purposeful. Julian has had many lovers, but none like this. His grief is evident, but still his attention to detail is exquisite.   
  
The doctor doesn’t beg or praise or make a show of his pleasure — this isn’t about him and he knows it. Julian only gasps and moans when he can’t hold it in — which is often enough — and lets Garak do what he wants. The heat coils tight inside him, though, and he knows he won’t last much longer. Gently, he tugs the spy up, pushes himself up to kiss him. He licks into Garak’s mouth, lets the kiss go languid until Garak finally pulls back.   
  
His blue eyes are wide. All Julian can think is that he looks lost, more childlike than he’s ever seen him before. Julian lifts his hand, places it along the side of Garak’s face. The Cardassian flinches, but Julian persists, traces the ridges, his ear, his jaw. “They’re gone,” he whispers.  
  
Garak nods, “Yes. _He_ is gone.”  
  
Julian doesn’t have to ask who ‘he’ is. He pushes up until he’s sitting, Garak kneeling between his legs so that for once the Cardassian is taller. He runs his hands along the bottom of Garak’s shirt, slips his fingers under it to trace bare skin. He wraps his long arms around Garak’s waist, presses his hands into his lower back, teases along his spine. Garak takes his face in his hands, kisses him deeply. When they break apart, Julian asks, “Take your shirt off?” Garak obliges, revealing more of himself than Julian ever expected. He doesn’t waste time ogling, though. He licks his way up the center of Garak’s chest, kisses and nibbles along his collarbone. His hands, likewise, explore the various ridge lines along his back and sides. Garak’s breath comes faster, his hands come up to his shoulders, thumbs rubbing Julian’s neck where ridges would be.   
  
They go on a while, Garak accepting what pleasure Julian can give. When they kiss again, Julian says, “But you’re here. You’re alive.” Garak tries to look away, but Julian catches him, leads his face back to his. “Garak,” a soft kiss, “You’re here, alive, with me. I want to feel how alive you are. I want to feel you inside of me. Please? Will you do this for me?”   
  
*  
  
Garak captures the human’s lips again. He doesn’t answer except to push Julian back down to the mattress, never breaking the kiss. He understands what the good doctor is trying to do and in other circumstances it might annoy him. But this time he is moved, overwhelmed by the offer. He has always been fascinated by Julian Bashir; perhaps he should not be so surprised that his sincerity and generosity continue here. Perhaps it says more about him than the doctor that he is always surprised by genuine acts of kindness and friendship. Regardless, he thinks, he’s hardly in a position to refuse. His hands find Julian’s hips again and he tugs him closer until his own hips are pressed tight against Julian’s ass. Against his ear, Garak murmurs, “If this is what you want,” he rolls his hips, lets Julian feel the hard line of his still-clothed erection, “then this is what you shall have, my dear.”   
  
Julian moans and bucks into him. “Yes,” he encourages, “I want you.” The strange thing is, Garak believes him.  
  
Garak unfastens his trousers, shoves them down to his knees. He runs one hand over his cock, already slick and wet. With his fingers well-coated, he teases Julian’s hole, watches the human squirm before he pushes his middle finger in deep. The muscles squeeze tight around him. He kisses the inside of Julian’s thigh, runs his other hand over his skin, soothing, until he starts to relax. Garak will make this as good for Julian as he can — it is the least he can do.  
  
Julian is patient, laying still (more or less) as Garak works him open with first one finger, and then a second. But then Garak brushes something inside the human and he arches up, his eyes roll back and he groans. Intrigued, Garak repeats, and is rewarded with several obviously involuntary hip thrusts and a significantly less patient doctor demanding, “Come on, Garak, I’m ready, _fuck_ me!”  
  
Garak smirks at the profanity, “Such language, my dear,” but he complies, pulling his fingers out and moving himself into position.   
  
He watches Julian’s face as he penetrates the human. The doctor is hot and tight inside, but his expressions are mind blowing. His mouth hangs open, caught in an “O” as his breath hitches. His eyes are squeezed tight, his head thrown back. A sheen of sweat across his forehead makes his hair damp and catches the faint light of the overhead computer display. Garak finds Julian an open book under normal circumstances; in this moment, the body before him is practically shouting his pleasure. Garak pauses to let Julian adjust, murmurs, “Breathe, my dear, breathe,” as he realizes this is not a gift given out of pity or even sympathy. For Julian, this evening has been a mutual exploration of grief and reaffirmation of life, and a deep, genuine declaration of his affection for Garak. “Oh, _Julian,_ ” he whispers, and leans forward to kiss him again.  
  
*  
  
He’d only done what seemed right at the time — it was all he ever did, really. Garak’s scaled skin moving against his, his mouth on his, his hands gripping his hips as his slick cock filling Bashir: it was all completely unpremeditated. But what is, is, as the Vulcans say, and Julian’s suddenly baffled as to why this _hadn’t_ occurred to him before. He wraps his arms around the Cardassian’s neck, runs his fingers through that black hair. He bucks and writhes beneath the heavier man, breaks their kiss to moan. Garak’s mouth finds his neck, sucks, bites at his pulse, and all he can do is tip his head back further, beg for more.  
  
Bashir squeezes one of Garak’s neck ridges tight and is surprised by the sharp gasp it earns him. He presses harder, with intent this time, drags his nails along the edge. Garak growls and bites him again, thrusts deeper into him. Julian arches up, “Oh, yes, like that, you’re wonderful!”   
  
“You,” Garak huffs, smiling against his skin, “Are awfully easy to please, if a creaky old tailor like me constitutes ‘wonderful.’”  
  
Julian shakes his head, “Nn- No, I — Oh, _Garak,_ ” he breaks off as the tailor wraps a hand around his erection and a fresh wave of pleasure rushes through him. What he wants to say is important, but he can’t seem to get out anything coherent, so he hopes his embarrassingly wanton moans speak clearly enough. Garak fucks him fast and jerks his cock even faster, and when the Cardassian’s mouth claims his again, possessive and demanding, Julian comes. One — two — three thrusts later and he feels Garak come deep inside him. He sighs out loud, a long soft “oh” of utter contentment.  
  
*  
  
They lie still, recovering, cooling, for several minutes. Garak feels closer to sleep than he has in over a week. The doctor’s ploy worked perfectly, it seems.   
  
There, those fingers thread through his hair again, pet down along his shoulder. It occurs to Garak he’s never seen the doctor quite so relaxed. Odd, that anyone should feel that way in his presence. He pulls back to see Julian’s face and finds sleepy eyes and a languid smile. “Marvelous,” he murmurs. He means it.  
  
Garak quirks a brow at him. He pulls out and slightly away, kissing Julian when he winces, and arranges himself with his head on the doctor’s shoulder and his arm around his waist. It seems like he’s taking a liberty, but Julian only wraps an arm around him in return and settles into his pillows. When stillness falls again, Garak says, “You were right.”  
  
He feels the question run through the doctor’s body before he asks, “About what?”  
  
“‘The fault lies not in our stars, but in ourselves,’” he quotes, as he had on the bridge of that damned Romulan warbird. “Your Shakespeare may have understood power and ambition and the blindness they bring better than I gave him credit for.”  
  
Julian is quiet for a long time. At last he says, cautiously, “At least... If the fault lies within us, we can do something about it once we recognize it.”  
  
If this were one of their lunch debates, Garak would scoff and deny the doctor’s optimism. But here, it’s offered to him like a light in the darkness, a way out of this pit he’s found himself in. Besides, he’s not entirely wrong: certainly, a fault within one’s self must be easier to affect than a predestined fate. He concedes, “Perhaps so, my dear.”  
  
Exhausted, wrapped in the warm embrace of his one true friend, Garak feels somehow washed clean, the events of the last two weeks finally settling in his mind. When Julian quietly commands, “Go to sleep, Garak,” at very long last, he does.  
  
\- End -  
  


**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Give Sorrow Words](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8429305) by [wcdarling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wcdarling/pseuds/wcdarling)




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